New Daily Driver

[zhawk]

Well, I finally had enough of that noisy Metro. It ran great but after working on a loud flightline all night I wanted a smooth, comfortable, relatively quiet drive. And I wanted something fun to drive.

So, Tammy and I decided to look at a couple of different cars and by accident we found my new daily driver.

Its a 2000 Fixed Roof Coupe and has the wonderfully fun 6-speed. We paid $19,400 and I was driving to work for about a week.

Now the reason I hate that Chevy dealership. The sales manager was a jerk when negotiating. He was actually yelling by the time it was over. We were honest up from with what we could afford and he acted like he thought we had a lot more than we said we did.

Then earlier this week (I've only had it a week), I was on my way to work and the SES light comes on and the car has barely any power. I limped it home and called the next morning to talk to them. The guy said, "hey, you bought a used car, what did you expect?" Even though they had a limited 3 month, 3000 mile warranty on it, he didn't even want to accept the responisbility of having it checked out. He then told us to have the car towed up to them (over 100 miles) and he would have it tested but that was it. The tow bill would have been more than the fee for having it tested.

My wife finally got him to agree to allow us to take it to a dealership 6 miles from our house and he would cover that and if it was something to do with the powertrain we could discuss it after that.

Anyway, the local dealership (Baydo Chevrolet) checks it out and the Throttle Module and Throttle Position Sensor are both bad. Total cost? About $600. The other dealership drew the line and said they would pay $300 of it and then we were on our own after this. The guy told me, "hey, things break and you wouldn't expect me to replace your headlights, woud you?" There's a big difference between consumable items and a major computer item.

To draw a bigger difference between these two dealerships, the local guy said that he would try to cut my costs as much as possible, store the Vette inside until it is fixed, and took over most of the dealings with the other place.

Bottom line? I can't wait to get my Vette back since it is so fun to drive. With the 6 speed I am getting nearly 30MPG going back and forth to work. The only change I have to make is to replace the Stereo. It has AM/FM/Cassette and I am replacing that with a Pioneer Am/FM/CD plus a 12 disk CD Changer, swapping out all of the speakers, adding an amp to drive a pair of Custom Autosound Subwoofers, and setting it all up to use my MP3 player.

Wish me luck.

[avro206]

nice car! That blue is kinda rae, I think. Go add some Z06 rims

[zhawk]

nice car! That blue is kinda rae, I think. Go add some Z06 rims

Tammy's already approved the new Z06 Rims when we have some spare cash.

As for the color, I looked it up in my Corvette Black Book and they only did 851 Vettes in the Nassau Blue Metallic in 2000.

[ocnblu]

ooo, Nassau Blue Fixed Roof, me likes.

[Carguy]

Cool!!!

[z28luvr01]

I love Nassau blue. It's arguably the best C5 color.

Nice going, zhawk. I'd love to be able to follow your lead and have a Corvette for a daily driver and a toy (you can never have too many :wink:), but alas I don't think I'd be able to lug my bike around in one. Also, I gotta love the fact that you got hitched to a female who shares your interest in cars. A rare find in itself.

[Iroczlover]

I love Nassau blue. It's arguably the best C5 color.

Nice going, zhawk. I'd love to be able to follow your lead and have a Corvette for a daily driver and a toy (you can never have too many :wink:), but alas I don't think I'd be able to lug my bike around in one. Also, I gotta love the fact that you got hitched to a female who shares your interest in cars. A rare find in itself.

Yeppers he sure did do a great find both on the car & MYSELF lol

[zhawk]

Dang, she found me.

[Z-06]

Dang, she found me.

You are one lucky fella dude. (Both for the car and the lady)

[Cory Wolfe]

Nice Vette. I have 1:18 scale convertible in that color.

[zhawk]

Thanks everyone.

I still don't know why so few Vettes had this color. It stands out nicely and shines so well.

BTW, yeah, I love it that Tammy is also a car fanatic. Shes the one who found our 72 Skylark convert and let's me get away with a lot when it comes to the cars. After 13+ years of marriage, things just keep getting better between us.

[zhawk]

Well, I got the Vette back a couple of days and waited to post here until I could drive it back and forth to work a couple of times.

Once again, driving to work is fun! The Vette is running very well and I am loving driving it.

Next step, pull the original radio and install and aftermarket one. I have already picked up a Pioneer head unit and am waiting on the harness that will allow me to wire it to the Bose speakers. I also have a pair of subwoofers and a Coustic amp to drive them ready to go. Next week is my long weekend, so the install happens then. If I want better speakers later, I'll pull the Bose speakers and wire for some good aftermarket ones. Ah, choices, choices.

[SuperSport623]

looks REAL good,, ive always loved the look of the Fixed Roof's.... and LS1/T56 is a gift from god

[Robert Hall]

Sounds like quite the bargain...a 2000 C5 for under $20k? Wow..